Driscoll, whose appointment will require Senate approval, was Syracuse's mayor from 2001 to 2009. He has led the EFC since 2010, and is currently overseeing the state's appeal of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's disqualification of nearly all of a $500 million loan from the federal Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund to pay for part of the high-priced Tappan Zee Bridge replacement.

McDonald was appointed in 2011 at the beginning of Cuomo's first term. Time Warner Cable News reported that she is expected to leave the agency later this year.

The shake-up follows a pattern of turnover in Cuomo's second term as he has cycled through staff members and some top-level appointees in favor of new faces. He has changed press secretaries (John Kelly replaced Matt Wing), signed on a new secretary (Bill Mulrow replaced Larry Schwartz), and has had to shuffle in a new director of the Thruway Authority (Bob Megna) and Thruway Authority chair (Howard Milstein) after resignations opened those two posts.

Driscoll would take over as DOT grapples with the question of how to maintain aging infrastructure across the state. The state is in the midst of replacing the Kosciuszko Bridge in Brooklyn, its largest project in history at $555 million, trying to figure out what to do with the stretch of I-81 that cuts through the heart of Syracuse, and mounting major local projects that include the replacement of bridges that carry the Northway over Albany Shaker Road in Colonie at Exit 4.

DOT also has turned its attention to the influx of oil trains that roll across New York — and converge in Albany — on the way to refineries.

PAUSE is a grassroots group of individuals who have come together to promote safe, sustainable energy and fight for environmental justice. We engage the greater public to stop the fossil fuel industry’s assault on the people of Albany and our environment.